Eighty-five environmental and ocean research organizations
oppose a Senate bill that fatally weakens U.S. dolphin protection law in
order to placate foreign economic interests who claim such laws violate
"free trade" agreements.
Greenpeace supports the "Dolphin Death Bill"
Almost alone among activist groups. Greenpeace supports a legalized return to the capture and killing of dolphins in tuna nets. In fact, this organization's endorsement has been invaluable in helping the Clinton administration move its "Dolphin Death Bill" - essentially a bailout for a few Latin American millionaires - through Congress.
It is, of course, distressing when natural allies disagree on issues of such importance. But the environmental movement is not monolithic. Differences in analysis and strategy do occur.
What should trouble all of us is when critical differences are disguised so that environmental supporters cannot make their own judgement and influence their organizations's actions.
Greenpeace is identified with protection of marine mammals
Yet Greenpeace never joined the scores of organizations that mounted the consumer boycott against canned tuna caught by killing dolphins.
In fact, at the height of the boycott, in 1989-90, Greenpeace did not have a single full-time campaigner working on the tuna\dolphin issue. During this time, no Greenpeace ship ever showed up in the Eastern Pacific to protest the slaughter of up to 200,000 dolphins in tuna nets each year.
Meanwhile, Greenpeace was mailing millions of letters appealing to the public to "save the dolphins" by sending their checks to Greenpeace. Greenpeace even released its own tuna\dolphin promotional video and fraudulently claimed credit for the eventual decision by U.S. tuna companies to go dolphin safe.
Now, six years after the boycott triumphed and the U.S. slapped tough sanctions on the dolphin killers - cutting dolphin deaths by 96% - Greenpeace has accepted the Clinton White House's shrewd invitation to help overturn the sanctions won by others. With this precedent, how many more hard-won U.S. environmental laws will be subverted in the name of "free trade"?
A call for truth in activism
You can understand the frustration of those who have devoted years to the battle to protect dolphins in the Eastern Pacific.
But our major concern is that so many Americans who admire Greenpeace for its much publicized campaigns in rubber dinghies don't know the role Greenpeace USA now plays inside the D.C. beltway.
We have enough trouble overcoming the "green propaganda" put out by cynical corporations. When a group with a public reputation for activism acts hypocritically, it is terribly damaging. Thousands of dolphins will needlessly die because of it.
Remind greenpeace leaders that they are accountable to the people who lend them support, not to Washington insiders.
They'll defend themselves with doubletalk. But the fact remains that they have no right to betray an environmental victory they did almost nothing to win, nor the millions of people who donated money to defend dolphins, not dolphin killers.
Contact Greenpeace now:
Phone: (202) 462-1177
Fax: (202) 462-4507